Do You Know An Idiot?

I agree with the idea that some form of combat instinct takes over in any auction. I once tried to win a nicely tripled US 25 cent coin - back when I collected those (1999). Well anyway, I decided I wanted this one particular coin and placed a snipe bid for $501. These coins typically sold in the $350 range, so I figured I would win. I came in THIRD - there were two other snipers and each of us picked $500 as the magic winning number. The coin sold for $507 with a $505 in between. I wrote to the other bidders and we had all done essentially the identical thing. We placed a bid above market just to assure we got a specific item. I learned a valuable lesson - any snipe has to be in your budget.

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Originally posted by walker

Could you please send me a few of those bidders? I started selling on ebay at the end of last year, with nothing but disappointing results, for the most part. Do any of you make decent money after listing fees, FV fees, PayPal fees, store fees, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah! Would appreciate any pointers!

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First, Walker, welcome to the forum! Our motto: "You got question; we got answers.". Lots of answers.

In answer to your question: Well, yes, most of the time I make money and use ebay to supplement my meager govt pensions. Some of us are fulltime eBayers (but not me; I'm just a part-timer). A few rules: don't buy anything that you can't resell for at least your purchase price; KNOW YOUR MARKET (I deal mostly in Morgans and Boy Scout memorabilia) and don't put out junk which is described as treasure; don't be greedy: keep your start price very low to attract the first bidders which maybe will start a bidding frenzy on a hot item (if you MUST receive a certain amount for an item, put a Reserve on it); good images and a good description go a long way with buyers. Avoid the pitfalls that many con artists use: blurry images, vague or misleading wording in descriptions. Don't be discouraged by sales failures or poor results; with experience, you'll learn how to "tweak" your auctions to bring in maximum gain. Above all, be open and honest in all your ebay transactions.

All good advice, I've been a part-time ebay'er for a while. I look at everything a seller has provided, I"ve run across cases where the fine print under a beautiful picture reads "item not exactly as shown". And as someone pointed out... 97% feedback over 3-4000 transactions isn't good, it's horrible actually.

I try to avoid sellers with blurry pictures, too many restrictions on buying the item (have seen a seller who said he will only accept bids received on saturdays, I kid you not), or not enough information in the item description.

But the best advice I can give, is get a set shipping rate up front. If they do not list one, ask for one. Living in Canada, some sellers only list shipping to the US, and say they will contact the winning bidder with shipping charges outside of the states. Don't fall for this, I once had a seller try to charge me $45 shipping for a $10 auction in an attempt to recoup his loss on the item. After pointing this out to the seller, he magically found a cheaper alternative, (it arrived via USPS) that only cost $5. Lesson Learned.

Cheers
Mark